Council set for re-vote on development

Three Fountains at 85th, Western prompted neighbors' objections

Dec. 16, 2013

Dan Brendtro

Written by

Dean Karsky

How the challenge petition works

• To protest a vote of the City Council on a property zoning issue, neighboring landowners can submit a petition to the city clerk. It must include the signatures of at least 40 percent of the landowners within a 250-foot radius of the property in question. • Twenty-nine landowners are within that boundary for the proposed Village at Three Fountains development at 85th Street and Wesetern Avenue in southern Sioux Falls. Twelve of them, or 41 percent, signed the challenge petition. Two signatures were thrown out because the property owners didn’t officially hold the deed to their land at the time of the first council vote Nov. 5. • The re-vote comes at Tuesday’s council meeting.

Greg Jamison

Joel Dykstra

The Sioux Falls City Council will re-vote on plans for a development in southern Sioux Falls after neighbors challenged a decision to allow larger apartment buildings at the site.

The Village at Three Fountains, a development of RMB Associates at 85th Street and Western Avenue, consists of single-family housing, a row of commercial buildings and seven apartment buildings.

Originally, the plan for the seven buildings was to build retail space on the ground level with apartment units on the two floors above. That type of mixed use wasn’t popular at other RMB projects, so developers requested a change to the permit.

The City Council approved a zoning change 5-2 last month that would allow RMB to build three-story apartment buildings with 182 living units.

“It’s just a flawed design,” Dan Brendtro said in an emailed statement on behalf of neighboring landowners. “Their proposal would increase the residential density at least five-fold, while eliminating the public plaza and abandoning any hope for sensible mixed-use.”

High-density dwelling isn’t right for the area, neighbors argue. A group challenged the council’s decision by circulating a petition that was submitted late last month to the city clerk.

The city attorney determined enough signatures had been collected to warrant a re-vote.

In the new vote Tuesday, approving the change will require a yes vote from at least six councilors.

Councilor Greg Jamison said he does not plan to change his “no” vote. Councilor Dean Karsky gave the other dissenting vote last month. He said he is undecided on how he will vote.

Councilor Jim Entenman was absent for the first vote. He said he is undecided.

Jamison’s family owned the property when the mixed-use concept was developed, and he’d like to see those plans fulfilled.

Jamison said he likes the intention of the mixed-use development for how it promotes pedestrian traffic, reduces traveling across town for shopping and business outings, and includes public space. Those benefits were behind the city’s decision to encourage such developments four years ago when mixed use became part of the 2035 comprehensive plan — the document that guides future land development.

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If the city can’t advocate for mixed use now, when the economy is strong enough to support these sort of developments, Jamison said the idea should be removed from the 2035 plan.

“In our best of times, the city should strongly be supporting it,” he said. “Let’s try this.”

RMB Associates CEO Joel Dykstra said he’s confident something will get built at 85th and Western.

“Sometimes developments take many, many different times and different people,” Dykstra said. “That area has had several different ideas applied to it.”

The location is the sticking point, he said.

“It violates every principle of good development, and it asks the City Council to break the promises it made to all of the neighbors in 2008,” Brendtro added.

Karsky said he went into the Nov. 5 meeting thinking he would vote to approve rezoning, but he changed his mind. Those landowners bought their properties knowing what type of development was planned for that nearby corner, he said, and changing the plans now isn’t fair.

“I wish they would sit down and work this out as neighbors,” Karsky said.